


A Stranger In a Really Strange land

by VorpalGirl



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Dimension Travel, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multiverse, Tobific
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-25 04:34:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4946902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VorpalGirl/pseuds/VorpalGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It all started when Cloud decided to pick up One Last, Quick Delivery on the outskirts of Edge, and then snowballed in surreality from there.”</p><p>Post-Dirge of Cerberus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tobiroth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobiroth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Put a Little Love into my Lonely Soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/994894) by [Tobiroth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobiroth/pseuds/Tobiroth). 



> This was inspired by Tobiroth's "Put A Little Love in my Lonely Soul"...not that you can even remotely tell at this point - and it doesn't need to be read before this at all - but she's very inspiring and I felt that credit was due where credit was due. ;) (Note: it's not actually "in continuity" with "Lonely Soul" either - just Inspired By. Because Tobi is inspiring <3)
> 
> I have a second chapter completed (but in need of final edits) that will probably go up later this week, too (and part of a third chapter, but not enough of a complete scene to post) :) I kinda was holding out to start posting it until I had updated on "Wake Me Up", but since that updated, woo! I can soothe my guilt X3
> 
> Hope you enjoy. :)

It all started when Cloud decided to pick up One Last, Quick Delivery on the outskirts of Edge, and then snowballed in surreality from there.  
  
It hadn’t even been a long delivery, or a difficult one; it was from a print shop on one edge of, well, Edge, to an Item shop in a newer but somewhat rougher part of town – not one he normally spent much time in, but hey, it was close by, so he figured it was quick, easy money. Bonus: he could pretty much do it on the way home. Hell, he’d be back in time for a late lunch.  
  
And it would have been all of that – quick, easy,  _undistracting_ – if it hadn’t been for what turned out to be at the end of that trip.  
  
He would never regret making it, though.  
  
It started out pretty smoothly. He got there in time to pick up the package and drop it off as scheduled, and traffic was no worse than usual for that time of day. He was basically on autopilot most of the way there, and by the time he’d arrived at the destination for the good-sized box on the back end of his bike, his mind was already looking ahead, to that late lunch with Tifa and the kids.   
  
The bell jangled on the door as he walked into the nondescript little hole in the wall of a shop – though, as he knew, that meant nothing in regards to the quality of the merchandise. He had found some amazing things in the most cobbled-together of places.   
  
An employee called out from the back, “be right with you!”, and he hummed a noncommittal response, more interested in the prominent materia rack.   
  
He was a touch surprised that they still had such a big display; it had gotten a lot less popular these days, thanks to the association with Shinra and mako processing. As Shinra had gotten as far out of the materia-making business as they had from all other Lifestream-meddling things, and as there were plenty of naturally-formed materia in the wild, there really wasn’t any reason for it, he felt. But then, he had always liked using the things, so he was probably not the most unbiased person to ask on that.   
  
He scanned the rack for anything interesting. But he had a pretty sizable collection – most of them Mastered – so there wasn’t really anything worth getting. He was just sparing a faint smirk at the thought of bringing Yuffie here – the look on her face with that much materia in the room,  _heh_ – when the employee walked out from the back room, and the whole Planet seemed to come to a standstill.

The shock of it was so unexpected, that he spent a good long moment – possibly several; he wasn’t exactly keeping track – just…staring. His heart wanted to pound its way out of his chest; he wasn’t sure he blamed it. Cloud would know _that_ face anywhere. 

Of course, his mind – used to having issues with reality on the regular – inevitably made him search the guy’s features for confirmation that  _no, no of course, it’s just a **mistake** , he just  **looks** …_

… exactly fucking like him.   
  
_Exactly_  fucking like him. In fact, he was surprised he hadn’t recognized the  _voice_ , too. Now that it registered with him, it sounded  _just_  like he —  
  
He wanted to question it. His well-honed paranoid tendencies, ever terrified of letting him get his hopes up, were  _screaming_  at him. Screaming that it couldn’t  _possibly_ be true, don’t believe his eyes, don’t, don’t!  
  
But…  
  
…but if the face and voice alone weren’t confirmation enough, the man was looking at Cloud with a sort of shocked recognition that could only be interpreted as: _Holy Shit! It’s **You!**  _  
  
Cloud had zero trouble recognizing the expression, because his own face mirrored it. For a long, long moment they kept staring. Open-mouthed, like neither could quite believe their eyes. Cloud certainly couldn’t.  
  
“Zack…” he finally whispered – or, he tried to, anyway. His traitorous throat clenched on him. His mouth made a few more attempts at forming words, which weren’t at all successful, until the silence was, quite suddenly, broken:   
  
“FAIR! The hell are you doing!?” snapped a gruff and cranky voice from the back room.“I - what?” Zack – it  _was_  Zack, Cloud was sure of it now – blurted, snapping to attention. It was the first time those eyes had been away from Cloud since the moment they had locked gazes.   
  
The owner of Gruff Voice – a balding man in a dusty apron with…was that a tattoo of a  _materia_  on his arm? – poked his head out from the back. “Don’t just  _stand_  there! Greet the damn customer!”  
  
“I - oh, I - sorry! Sorry,” Zack muttered sheepishly, one hand – _I remember him looking like that before, the same gesture_  – rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
Gruff Voice shot an annoyed glare at Zack, before turning to Cloud. At least by that point, the interruption allowed Cloud a moment to gather his wits again…sort of, anyway.  
  
“Um, actually – I’m making a delivery?” he said, holding up the clipboard. “From…” Damn, had he already forgotten the place he was at less than an hour ago? Where was his _head_? He checked the paperwork. “Priscilla’s Perfect Printers?”  
  
“Oh,” Gruff Voice snorted, and promptly wandered back into the storage room, one hand waving dismissively. “Figgers. Guess it was too much to hope for we’d have an actual _customer_ …sounds like it’s that crap you ordered, right? Go ahead and sign for it, then.”  
  
“R-right…” Zack muttered. He turned slowly back to Cloud, who in all honesty had not taken his eyes off him except for when Gruff Voice first popped out and when he had to check the paperwork. In his defense, it was…hard not to stare.  
  
“Fair…” Cloud murmured.  _Logic_  told him it was completely nuts, of course, but…  
  
But that was  _his_  last name. That was  _his_  face. His  _voice_. Cloud would know them anywhere, especially after berating himself so long for forgetting. And he  _recognized_ him. Recognized him right back. Both head and heart agreed:  
  
“It’s…it’s you,” Cloud said. Barely. He could feel himself on the edge of some very happy, very scared, very  _confused_  tears, but wasn’t sure he cared. _Zack. Zack is alive. Zack is **alive!**  _And in front of him. And  _real_ , because somebody else freaking saw him, right? _So it’s not a flashback, or a hallucination, or – or some vision from the Lifestream. This is real. This is **real** , and it’s…it’s…   
_  
“Zack,” he said, and it was like the final piece clicked into place. The final little puzzle piece that said _This Is Real, This Not Your Mind Fucking Around With You Again. This is **Real.**_  
  
He felt a hell of a lot of…well, he felt a hell of a lot, period. But mostly, he felt  _relief_. Could feel so many muscles uncoil, right down to ones he hadn’t known were even tight. He felt himself breathe again, having apparently paused. Felt his heart rate settle, from the thundering pace it had climbed to. Relief. Sheer relief overtook him.  
  
And then Zack  _winced._  
  
“Shit…” he muttered, and Cloud realized he had maybe hoped too soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Zack rubbed the back of his neck again, and Cloud noticed him swallowing nervously. He sucked in a breath, before letting it out in a sigh, and reached a hand out, noting: “I prob’ly have to sign for that, right?” **  
**

“Um. Yeah,” Cloud said, and suddenly, what had been convincingly real felt dream-like; Zack’s behavior – hell, his existence here at all, if Cloud let himself think about it – was so strange and…confusing. He handed the clipboard over, but it felt like it was as light as air as he did. Like his limbs were disconnected from the rest of him. Zack – it… _was_ Zack, right? – took the board from him carefully.  
  
“Um…got a pen?” he asked awkwardly.  
  
“Huh? Oh, right.” Cloud dug one out of a pocket and handed it over; he couldn’t help but notice though that when he accepted it, he did so almost gingerly. As if he were afraid to touch him or something.

“Thanks,” he said softly, and somehow the sheer tentativeness of his behavior – so at odds with what Cloud remembered of him, so different from the man who had seemed confident and sure and strong right up through the moment of his death – it made Cloud…unnerved. He found himself staring again, as the paperwork was signed, but for very different reasons.   
  
The clipboard was handed back to him and he took perhaps half a moment longer than he normally would to accept it. He tore his eyes away from the man’s face long enough to glance at the signature.  
  
It was messy as hell, more of a scrawl than fine penmanship, but he could still make out what it said clearly enough:  
  
_Zack Fair._

So. The name was a perfect match, too – along with the face, the voice, even some of his body language. And that look. The one he had given him when they first laid eyes on each other, the one where it looked like he knew  _exactly_  who Cloud was.

The whole thing was surreal and so out of whack – especially with Zack’s weirdly guarded behavior – that on top of it being simply unexpected, he found it a bit… _galling_.

The sheer absurdity of it all was enough to prompt him to be even blunter than usual: “Zack,” he said. “What the  _hell._ ”  
  
“Um…” was the reply.

“No, seriously,” Cloud cut in, irritation and confusion mingling to create a truly peeved delivery man. “What the hell are you doing –  _alive_  – in some random shop in Edge?”  Unspoken, but sure as hell implied, was:  _And why didn’t I know about it until **now**?_

Zack looked at him, a series of emotions flickering across his eyes that Cloud couldn’t catch fast enough to read. It seemed to be a fairly serious look on the whole though, and it softened after a moment. He pursed his lips, before saying: “Gimme a moment, okay?”

He turned back towards the rear of the shop. “Hey! Harold!” he called. “I’m gonna take my lunch now, if that’s all right?”   
  
“Eh, whatever,” Gruff Voice grunted. “Just don’t forget to actually clock out this time!”  
  
Though ‘Harold’ couldn’t see him, Zack nodded. “I won’t,” he replied. He turned back to Cloud, raising a finger. “One minute, okay?” he said.  
  
He was still speaking so… _gently_ , that Cloud found it disconcerting. He nodded back though, because what else was he supposed to say?   
  
Zack stepped back behind the counter and did exactly as promised, on what looked to be an old-timey analog punch-clock system. It actually made a loud  _ka-chunk!_  sound when he pulled the lever.  
  
There was only one time card and Zack placed it carefully back in its slot.

He wandered back over to Cloud, and sighed. “I suppose it’s too much to hope for that –” he let out a frustrated breath, and looked down, shaking his head, After a moment of silence, he finally said, with a hint of resignation: “You’re…native. Aren’t you.”

Cloud blinked. The hell was  _that_  supposed to mean?   
  
“To…this world, I mean,” Zack said. His tone was as somber as it was awkward. “This…well. This version of it, I mean.”   
  
Cloud blinked again. “ _Version_  of it?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What’re you –”  
  
“Here. Where we are now. In this universe,” Zack clarified, finally looking back up to meet his eye. He sounded a touch frustrated. And his eyes…they seemed bright, but  _not_ , Cloud realized, mako-bright. “You were born in  _this_ one, right?”  
  
It was then – after a moment for it to sink in, anyway – that Cloud finally registered what he was getting at. Even then, it was so hard to believe that he blurted out:  
  
“You mean you  _weren’t_?”

Even in the midst of all this weirdness, all this confusion and disbelief, Cloud couldn’t help but feel a pang at the way Zack’s already strained features seemed to grow so…sad.  
  
“Guess that answers  _that_ question,” he replied ruefully. He sighed again, covering his eyes with his hand. He took another deep breath in, as if he were building up to saying one of the hardest things he had ever had to say. Which in hindsight, he was.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, moving his hand so he could look Cloud in the eye again. He seemed exceptionally sad to say it, and Cloud had a sinking feeling he didn’t like where this was going.   
  
But, lump in his throat, he said it anyway: “You’re…not him.”  
  
“The ‘Zack Fair’ you probably knew?” he replied, his tone gentle. “No. I’m not.”  
  
“Oh…” Cloud said, because what else could he? He felt like a deflated balloon.  
  
He realized a moment later that he had stopped looking at Zack – at this Other Zack – and was staring at the cheap linoleum floor.

Zack fidgeted a little in front of him, before saying – with so much sympathy that it  _hurt -_ \- “I really am sorry. I didn’t…know that I’d run into you. You know?”  
  
“You acted like you recognized me,” Cloud said. More as a dull note of curious fact than anything else, though it did beg a hell of a question.   
  
To his surprise, Zack sighed – though it was more wistful this time. Cloud looked back up in time to see that the expression matched, as he said: “Yeah…”  Zack hadn’t stopped looking at him, he realized. Even when Cloud had stopped meeting his eye. He was even smiling, though a bit ruefully. “I thought – when I first saw you… that you were someone I used to know. Back home.”  
  
Well, that  _half_ -answered the question.

“Who?” Cloud said, wondering if his hunch was correct. Was the world – well,  _worlds_ , he supposed – really that strange?   
  
Zack’s smile grew more lopsided. “Well,” he said. “I guess it was our version of you.”  
  
“What was his name?” Cloud said, really wondering just exactly how surreal this was going to get.  
  
Turned out: very.  
  
“Cloud,” Zack said, with a sad sort of fondness. “Cloud Strife. We were…” he swallowed. “…close.”  
  
Cloud found this oddly comforting, though not just for the obvious reason. “So…your name really is…?”  
  
“Yeah,” Zack said.

He felt something uncoil in him, that he hadn’t quite realized was even tight. He nodded, and felt his mouth quirk in a faint ghost of a smirk. “Good to know you’re not just trading on his name, then.”  
  
Zack rubbed his neck yet again – it was still so weird to see it – and said, “Eh…heh. True, I guess.”  
  
Still. There was another Behemoth in the room.   
  
“So…if you’re from another…universe,” he started.  
  
“I guess you’ve got a few questions,” Zack said sheepishly.   
  
“A few,” Cloud said dryly.   
  
“Yeah. I figured,” he replied. “If you want… there’s a diner ‘round the corner – we could grab a bite to eat, if you could stand to, and then…you know, I’ll answer what I can. My treat,” he added quickly.   
  
_Do you think you could keep some food down? We could grab a bite to eat – my treat._

It took a moment for Cloud to realize where he still was, and that Zack was trying to get his attention. “Huh?”  
  
“I asked if you were okay,” Zack said. He sounded legitimately concerned, and Cloud felt briefly guilty for spacing out like that. He hadn’t had a moment like that in a while.   
  
“Yeah,” he said, waving it off. “I’m fine.” He maybe wasn’t, but figured there was no point in dwelling on it.  “And I got plenty of gil right now, so there’s no need – I’ll treat.” He hadn’t looked in Zack’s wallet or anything, but given the small-fry status of the place he worked, Cloud was not betting on it being filled to the brim.  
  
“You’re sure?” Zack said. His eyebrows were furrowed. In concern. It bothered him somehow. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”  
  
One thing was for certain:   
  
Lunch was going to be weird as hell.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That weird as hell lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to put up; I had the I suppose awesome problem of having written a LOT, but not with a good point for a chapter break that leapt out at me. It took several read-throughs to find a good spot for that but I FINALLY FOUND IT so huzzah! As it is, this chapter is over 4200 words long which is literally longer than the rest of the fic combined, but...I pretty much don’t think I could have cut it off any earlier than I did or it would have been weird. >_> We’re just gonna have to deal with me having weirdly erratic chapter lengths in just about everything I do, I think. Oh well. :P I’m sure the people who wanted to see more of this aren’t complaining, haha.

 

It was late enough in the day that the diner was relatively quiet when they got there. The waitress was a young girl, called “Rosie”, who positively lit up upon seeing who he was with. She and Zack greeted each other warmly, and Cloud tried to remind himself that this really  _was_ another person, and that it didn’t mean anything, was just coincidence, that the two had a friendly rapport while he hadn’t known the man was even here. After all, it wasn’t like  _this_  Zack had known he existed; he hadn’t been avoiding him, he had just...not run into him before. Right?

But he still felt a pang, at the realization that at some point, this “Rosie” had been getting to know this Zack, while he was oblivious and probably off having nightmares about  _his_  Zack’s…  
  
_Easy_ , he told himself.  _Easy. Don’t...think of that right now. He didn’t even blame you. You know that. You **know**  that…_  
  
“Hey…” Zack’s concerned eyes, his hand resting gently on his bicep, snapped him back to reality. He noticed then that his heart was hammering in his chest, and his breathing had gone short. “Are you sure you’re okay? We don’t have to do this if you don’t -- ”  
  
He shook his head, clearing it of the fog that had pressed in on him. “Yes,” he said, which was only partly a lie. “I’ll be fine. I have to do this.”  
  
Because he did. He really, really did. There was no way in hell he’d be able to live the rest of his life having randomly run into  _a Zack Fair duplicate from another fucking universe_ , without knowing more. Especially if he was going to be living in the same goddamn city; they were bound to run into each other again eventually. And it would probably be better for his own...sanity, if he got some answers.

“Okay…” Zack said carefully, “if you’re sure…”  
  
Rosie was frowning at him, and for a moment Cloud felt sure she was going to pry. But if anything, she did the opposite: “I’ll take you to one of the more private tables,” she said firmly, and gestured at him to follow. “This way...”  
  
She wasn’t kidding, either; the diner was constructed...strangely, he realized. Part of it was an open floor plan, with a handful of booths and a lunch counter in front of an open kitchen -- like every “diner” since the dawn of time. But she took them past that counter and past that kitchen, through a door on the side.   
  
“More private” was both accurate and somehow failed to convey what the back of the place was like: an awkward and ill-lit maze of furniture, which smelled a little like cigarettes and hash. The center of the room actually contained a pool table -- beat up, but still in usable condition -- which was ringed by a mixture of uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs and cushy couches, all of which had probably been salvaged from the ruins of Midgar, if he had to guess. The walls were oddly shaped, with little dips and alcoves for the actual tables, and though weirdly claustrophobic, it managed to instill a more intimate feel to each of the tables.  
  
She placed them in one such alcove, towards the back, in a little nook that was almost more of a cubby. A table meant for two, it had as good a view of the dingy back room as you could get, and he noted to himself that he could see both the entrance and the Emergency Exit from here, while still keeping his back to a wall; things that he always appreciated, to be honest. He felt a bit bad for his earlier unkind thoughts regarding her.  
  
Unlike the front room, which was the same kind of plastic, metal and linoleum combination that you’d expect from a “diner”, this room had thick carpets, no windows, and cloth-covered walls...very  _insulated_ , including for sound, if he had to lay bets.   
  
It made him a little bit suspicious about the kinds of clientele this place served.  
    
“Thanks, Doll,” Zack said, winking at her as they were seated.  
  
“No prob, Hedgehog,” she teased. “I’ll leave you two alone for a few, yeah? Remember to knock when you’re ready to order.”  
  
She left, and Cloud blinked. “Knock…?”   
  
“Heh. Yeah,” Zack said. “Like she said, this is the...more private area. So if you want the waitstaff to come by…” he lifted a fist, and mimed a quick rapping motion against a pipe along the wall. “You gotta make some noise.”  
  
Yeah, Cloud was  _really_  suspicious about the kinds of clientele this place served now. “How the hell did you end up a regular here?” he said, glancing over his menu.  
  
“Hey, the food is good -- and cheap, by local standards,” he said. “Plus, me an’ Rosie go back a few years, so when she started wor-- “  
  
“ _Years_?” Cloud said, snapping to attention, all thoughts of the menu forgotten. “Wait a minute. How long have you  _been_  here?”

He didn’t mean it to sound accusatory, but it kind of did. Zack winced a little, hand going yet again to his neck. “Um...a while,” he admitted.  
  
“How long,” Cloud said tersely.  
  
“...a few months before Meteor,” he said.   
  
Cloud felt the breath go right out of him.  
  
_Before_  Meteor? A few  _months_ before Meteor? That meant…  
  
That meant that while Cloud and Tifa and the rest of AVALANCHE were battling Sephiroth, this Zack was already here. That while he and Tifa snuggled anxiously under the Highwand’s shadow, while he was losing his mind, while he was _losing Aerith_  --   
  
“Cloud?” Zack said softly, thankfully pulling him out of that particularly unpleasant train of thought. Again.  
  
“Sorry…” he muttered back, and forced his thoughts into some semblance of coherency. “Um...where?”  
  
Zack blinked in confusion. Which was fair, Cloud realized.

“During...Meteor,” Cloud said, voice just as soft. “Where were you?”  
  
“Ah…” Zack said. “Sector 4.”  
  
It took a lot of effort for Cloud to resist clutching at the tablecloth. “In Midgar?”   
  
“Yeah,” he replied. “Under the Plate. It’s kinda where I ended up -- Plateside being too upscale for someone who’s just arrived, with very few gil in the pocket, yeah? I mean I was  _some_  kinda middle class before I got here, I guess, but I only had so much actually  _on_  me, and frankly, I’m lucky the currency even ended up being the same at all, but -- anyway, that’s how I met Harry: he used to have a materia shop down there, before...well, you know.”

The Midgar slums. He had been in  _the Midgar slums_ the whole damn time, just on the other side of the city. But not so far that he couldn’t have been found, if --  
  
“Is...there something wrong? Cloud?” he actually looked a little insecure as he said it, and the look was not one Cloud liked seeing on that face. He couldn’t blame him, though; Cloud was acting like it was a big deal. It...technically wasn’t.

“No…” he said. “Just...amazed.” He paused, then realized there was no reason not to be honest. “My friends and I were usually below the Plates in Sectors 5 and 7, before the Plate fell...” And boy wasn’t  _that_  a thing he didn’t like bringing up in conversation: the night half of AVALANCHE got wiped out right in front of him. He swallowed, forcing himself not to think of Biggs, and Wedge, and Jessie. “Not all of us were in the city when Meteor hit, but…”  
  
Zack’s eyes had widened, though; he’d caught on quickly. “Damn!” He breathed in, and let it out in a low whistle, shaking his head slowly. “That whole time…” He tapped his fingers on the table, absently, as he thought. “It’s a shame we didn’t run into each other sooner,” he said quietly. “Still, I’m glad you made it out okay.”  
  
“Same here,” Cloud said. He hesitated, but it was hard not to ask -- though, to Zack’s credit, he seemed patient enough to let him pull his thoughts together. He was grateful for that. “When you say,” he started. “That you were in Sector 4, below the Plate…”  
  
Cloud was pretty sure he hadn’t meant  _literally_ during Meteorfall. Right? Not in Sector 4. Not below the Plate. Because while Sector 3’s Plate had managed to stay intact until afterward, both of the Sectors’ next to it had not. But he still wanted to know, because he knew damn well Yuffie and Vincent had stayed behind to help evacuate the last of Midgar’s citizens, and part of him was morbidly curious just how frustrated he should be at fate, here. Had this Zack run into them while getting out, or had he been smart enough to run before that? By just how much of a hair’s breadth had they missed meeting before now?

What he least expected to hear was:  
  
“Ha! Yeah,  _that_  was fun times.”  
  
“In...Sector 4?” Cloud said, disbelieving. He couldn’t mean that --  
  
“Near the edge of the Plate,” Zack said, his smirk turning into an amused though still somewhat dry smile, as he leaned back to watch Cloud’s understandably shocked reaction. “Which was lucky, ‘cause it didn’t fall evenly -- too many buildings of different sizes and construction. It went down all --” he spread his hands wide, and gestured like he was holding an invisible platter and tipping it to one side. “ --  _askew_. So there were pockets where it wasn’t as crushed as others.”   
  
“ _As_  crushed?” Cloud said, still a bit stunned.   
  
“Well, yeah,” Zack said ruefully. “Didn’t get off that easy. But it was enough to make the difference between a few broken bones, and -- well, you know.  _Every_  bone.”  
  
Cloud winced, not really wanting to picture the latter. “So you...were in one of those pockets? Near the edge of the Plate?”

He nodded. “Yeah, the building we were in still collapsed, mind, but the Plate kinda tilted --” again that tipping gesture, though in the other direction. “Enough that it dipped a little away, so more of the weight was off the building than on it, so...we survived, once we got out of the rubble. Sucked, though,” he added vehemently.

“I can imagine,” Cloud murmured, frowning. “So…” He paused, awkwardly.  
  
“Yes?”   
  
“So you really were stuck in the city?” he muttered. Even though it was years past, part of him felt a pang of concern for him. He couldn’t imagine a worse place to have been stuck during the disaster than underneath one of the Midgar Plates. And the pause between “so” and “we survived” hadn’t gone unnoticed, any more than the reference to being in a building that had “collapsed”. They had gotten as many people as they could out, but…

Zack chuckled, dryly. “Yeah. Not entirely by choice, but -- still kinda my fault,” he said. “I had more than one chance to get out sooner, but -- well, there were a couple people I didn’t want to leave behind. And you try looking at a woman with a toddler in hand and saying, ‘no, honey, _I_  got here first, get your  _own_ fucking spot on a truck out’.” He shook his head, but he smiled. “It’s okay, though. It worked out, because if I hadn’t stayed, I wouldn’t have been there for Rosie and her sister -- her parents had been stubborn and tried to stay, figuring the Plate was gonna hold. One of the neighbors managed to drag them out, but in the confusion, her baby sister got left upstairs, so she ran back up for her and -- well, anyway, we’re all three of us alive, and that’s what counts.”  
  
Cloud nodded. “Yeah…”

It was a lot to take in, especially without getting overwhelmed. The whole time that his fragile fucking head had been wavering between forgetting and remembering the Zack he had known, he could have run into  _this_  one -- and who knew what that would have done to his messed up state of mind? Or -- what if he had died during Meteor? Or before that, even -- some mugger in the slums, maybe, or a monster? If he had...wound up like his counterpart at any moment before now, he wouldn’t have known this Zack ever  _existed_.

Actually...hang on. He frowned.

The Zack he had known had been killed by the Shinra Infantry. Because they were heading into Midgar. Which was Shinra’s freaking stronghold, its headquarters. Yet this Zack had wandered around in Sector 4 of that same city for several months, without getting perforated?

There were a lot of questions in that, but he wasn’t sure where to start.

Which made it a very good thing that Zack took initiative.

“So…” he said tentatively. “I...am sure this isn’t a pleasant subject, but...I kinda need to touch on it, I guess. The...other Zack? The one you used to know?”  
  
“Yes?” Cloud said slowly, and was ready to put those questions on the back burner until Zack decided to yank it right back to the front.  
  
“He’s, um…” he didn’t seem comfortable saying it, but right as Cloud was going to bite the bullet, he again saved him the trouble. “Gone...right?”  
  
Cloud swallowed, and forced himself to keep staring at this living, breathing Zack. Mostly so he wouldn’t get stuck in a loop of imagining the less-than-living, no-longer-breathing Zack. “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

Zack sighed. “I figured. I’m really sorry,” he said, and it sounded so genuine...probably because it was. “This...must be really hard for you. I’m sorry you have to deal with this right now...”

Cloud very suddenly wished he had a drink in front of him. Possibly a stiff one, but even water would preferable to the dry throat he had now. “Don’t be,” he said. “It was...a while back. It’s not like you did anything to cause it.”  
  
“Mm,” Zack hummed, tilting his head as if to say ‘I guess, if you say so.’ “Still. I dunno how close you two were, but…” it was his turn, apparently, to swallow around a dry throat. “If...you were anywhere near as close as the Cloud in my home world and I were…”  
  
“I...it’s okay,” Cloud said, not comfortable at all with where this was starting to go. Partly because he couldn’t quite _remember_  how close they’d really been.   
  
It felt sometimes like they must have been best friends...but then, Zack --  _any_  Zack, it seemed -- was pretty good at making friends. And while the Zack who had died in the wastes several years ago had been willing to do so to protect him, the version in front of him now had jumped into a collapsing building to save a pair of kids that weren’t his own, had from the sounds of it, given up his chance of escaping the city during a disaster to...what? Help a complete stranger, just because they seemed vulnerable and sympathetic?   
  
Maybe they  _had_  been close. Maybe they had been friends, even best friends. It was a nice thought. A _tempting_  thought.   
  
Or, maybe Zack was just the kind of man who willingly risked his life for other people to begin with. Maybe  _every_  version of him was. Maybe he hadn’t needed to know Cloud at all, beyond some vague working relationship or beyond being stuck together in a basement mako tube, to be willing to die for him.

It wasn’t just a sobering thought; it was  _painful_. Because either way, it felt like his failure to remember which it was, was a disservice to him. After all, who  _forgets_  such a close friendship, with someone that loyal? Who  _forgets_  that noble of a sacrifice, from someone so kind and so giving that they’d do that for a near stranger? Either way, he could feel a stab of guilt run through him, because either way it seemed unfair to Zack.

“Hey…” said that soft voice again, just when he needed it; a warm hand covered his own on the table. “You know...we don’t have to do this now, if it’s too much for you. Nobody could blame you, for wanting some time to process it.”

If Cloud had had a moment to think about it, he wouldn’t have reacted to the touch, because normally, he’d feel it was awkward to do so. But as it was, the gentle voice, the acceptance, the encouragement...the warmth of his hand...something in Cloud was either going to cry, or had to grab hold of that hand, and he would be damned if he was going to break down in tears not ten minutes into the conversation.

It was interesting, he observed somewhere in the back of his mind: when Cloud had turned his wrist and grabbed hold of Zack’s hand, Zack actually relaxed. He squeezed gently, and even though Cloud was pretty sure this man had never been a SOLDIER, it still felt like he was the strong one.

Cloud let out a sigh that was more of a huff, stirring one of his lower-hanging spikes. He was actually ready, he figured, to ask one of the questions that he supposed wasn’t really important, but that he still burned to know: “So...about...the other Zack.”  
  
“Yeah?” He glanced up, and saw this one watching him, carefully and patiently. 

“Well,” he said. “He...well, Shinra was...after him, at the end.”

Zack’s mouth twisted slightly, his lips pursing as it did, but otherwise his expression remained the same. He made a sound of acknowledgement, inclined his head in the same, and Cloud continued.  
  
“I just...I’m wondering how it is you didn’t end up in trouble with the Turks or something,” Cloud said. “I mean, all I can think of is that they must have known he was already...dead, but…”

Zack pulled an impressively pained face that was somewhere between Chagrin and I Have a Mouthful of the Bitterest Substance On Gaia. “Yeaaah...about that,” he said, and Cloud got the feeling that if he hadn’t been holding that hand, it would have been rubbing his neck again. “I actually always wondered what really happened to him. Because -- not gonna lie -- when I finally put two and two together and realized I was in another universe and not just like, some dystopian future version of  _my_  Midgar? I tried to see if I could find any of the people I knew, or, well, versions of them? And…well,” he said, frowning. “I ran across evidence of him -- along with a few other...versions, of people I knew back home -- at least  _existing_. And having been in SOLDIER. But he was listed as having been KIA, a while prior. Except, there was this one time...”  
  
He paused to suck in a breath and let it out; Cloud waited for him to continue. He did not disappoint.

“I could swear to whatever god you want,” he said quietly. “That there was at least one Turk that ‘recognized’ me, this one time. She was passing by and she did this...double take like you wouldn’t believe. She turned back around and she grabbed my arm -- scared the shit outta me -- but then...she looked at my eyes. She looked right at ‘em, and then muttered that they were ‘all wrong’ -- which, I’m guessin’ is a reference to them not being all…” he waved his hand vaguely at Cloud’s face above his nose. “Glowy. Since he was in SOLDIER and all.”

“Hm.” That was certainly food for thought. Cloud leaned forward, to take a closer look. The lighting here was dim, but… “Oh,” he said, surprised.

Surprised mostly that he hadn’t noticed it before: they weren’t just different, they were  _very_  different.

Not only did they lack a SOLDIER’s mako glow around the pupil, they weren’t at all the right color; it was sometimes hard to remember that mako interacted with a lot more than just the inner eye, that it was more than just the pupil or a strange little ring around it that changed. Especially since he was aware, on some level, of his own eyes having always been some shade of blue.

Zack’s, it seemed, _hadn’t_  always been blue. At least, judging by his counterpart’s they hadn’t.

They sort of  _looked_ blue, in dim lighting -- or if you weren’t paying close enough attention. But they were actually...more of a violet. And not only was it the wrong hue, it was far  _darker_  than the vivid, intense azure that he remembered on him, or that matched his own. Now that he saw it more closely, it was a color that would be more at home on a flower somewhere, than in the sky.

“Well,” he muttered. “She’s not wrong.”

“So that stuff really does change your eyes, huh?” Zack said, his tone thoughtful. He seemed to be looking at Cloud’s eyes, too.   
  
“Yeah,” Cloud said. “It does.”  
  
“Yours are a little brighter,” Zack added. “The...other Cloud’s were a little softer. But still blue.”  
  
Cloud nodded, and it occurred to him then: “Aren’t you on your lunch break? We should probably order something…”  
  
“Eh? Oh!” he said sheepishly. “Right. You’re right. Um...right, I’ll...stop distractin’ ya from the menu then.”

It was, Cloud realized upon further glance, a surprisingly impressive menu; everything you could imagine a ‘diner’ providing was listed, from greasy breakfasts to incredibly unhealthy dinners. And also some weird items, like…  
  
“Lobster bisque?” he said, baffled. “At a diner.” At a diner in Edge, no less; they weren’t anywhere  _near_  a place where you could get lobsters easily -- though, the price tag showed it.   
  
“Ha! Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it’s good, but it’s  _way_  expensive, so I’ve never been able to justify it...”

“Sauteed Adamantaimai?  _Broiled Bandersnatch_!?” Okay, at those, Cloud’s eyebrows shot right up; Adamantaimai were from the coast of freaking Wutai, and Bandersnatch were usually found way up around Icicle Inn; in both cases, they were not only monsters, but monsters found on entirely different continents.  “How the hell do they even  _get_  this stuff?  _Why_  would they get this stuff? Who even  _eats_  this?” Well, okay, so maybe he’d eaten Nibel Wolf before, but only as a desperate measure, not as a _delicacy_. And Nibel Wolves were a hell of a lot easier to find than Bandersnatch.

Zack burst into laughter. “Judgin’ from the unaffordable pricetag, I’d say: very expensively.” He grinned. “And I don’t know that they’ve ever actually sold it; I think the owner just sticks it on the menu because he can. Pretty sure most people stick to the normal food.”    
  
Cloud shot him a look. “Who the hell comes here, anyway?”  
  
“Normal folk,” he shrugged, winking. “And less-normal folk.”  
  
“No kidding…” Cloud muttered. “You know what you’re having?”

“Yeah, you ready?” he replied, knuckles raised over the pipe, and head tilting in question...it looked strikingly like the body language of a puppy, though with hair that got him constantly compared to a chocobo, Cloud supposed he shouldn’t be calling the kettle black. At least not out loud. So he ignored the mental image, and nodded.  
  
A Zack’s rapping, Rosie came back and took their orders: grilled cheese and a hot tea in Zack’s case, a burger and fries with a cold beer in his case. Cloud wasn’t much of a drinker normally, but if any day warranted it, it was this one.

Their orders placed, Cloud finally brought up the other thing that had been bothering him most:  
  
“So...if you’re from a whole other universe...why are you  _here_?”

This got a lopsided smile out of Zack, who leaned forward conspiratorially, and announced:

“No clue.”


End file.
